News:

The Book of the Diner is well worth preserving. I only wish it had reached a broader audience when it might have mattered more. That is a testament to the blindness of our culture. If there is a future to look back from, one difficult question historians will have to ask is how we let this happen, when so many saw it coming. This site has certainly aggregated enough information and critical thinking to prove that.[/b]

AuthorTopic: 📺 Morning Collapse Wake-Up Call (Read 22365 times)

RE:Liked your production. I have to agree with both you and G. Chia that Extinction Rebellion has it's heart in the right place, but civilization can't be saved. I sometimes feel like Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner - the worlds we have seen and it's all going away (for both us and all who are alive).AJ

RE:Liked your production. I have to agree with both you and G. Chia that Extinction Rebellion has it's heart in the right place, but civilization can't be saved. I sometimes feel like Rutger Hauer's character in Blade Runner - the worlds we have seen and it's all going away (for both us and all who are alive).AJ

All going away, to be sure. I intend however to eat well on my way out the door. Also hopefully eat fairly well after SHTF Day, assuming enough of the friends I make now who give me fish to cook up will still be fishing and catching them, not to mention hunting down a few Moose & Caribou. You can really wreck any of them with a crappy cook. I'm not looking forward to substituting the local Crows for Chicken though, hopefully locals will be raising some. I'm going to start growing Mushrooms if I can find the time. The video editing schedule these days is about endless.

Heading out now as we text to do a traditional Hamburger July 4th grilling, tailgate style.

(audio-only MP3 provided in case you want to multi-task and listen while sitting in traffic on the way to work in your cubicle or digging post holes for your fencing on the Doomstead or kneeling by the throne and Praying to the Porcelain God. mp3 Audio can be downloaded from Diner Soundcloud.)

A few weeks ago I had a great conversation with George Mobus, the university academic famous for his work in Systems Science. George is now Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, spending his time writing still more books on this subject and the topics relating to Collapse in general. He also still maintains the blog Question Everything, although these days he only puts out 4 blogs a year, on the Summer & Winter Solstices and on the Spring & Fall Equinoxes.

George also appeared on the original Collapse Cafe we produced a few years ago, discussing topics of Sapience, Evolution and Eugenics in July of 2013.

Coincidently directly following this discussion I traveled down to Seattle on other bizness and George, K-Dog of the blog Chasing the Squirrel and myself had a great Kollapsnik Dinner at the Buffet of the Emerald Queen Casino. I'm not supposed to reveal what anybody ate at this meal since it's probably not Politically Correct for Kollapsniks. lol. Conspicuous Consumption of food is of course not a Sustainable System. However, as long as somebody is going to eat it, it might as well be me! If you are not familiar with K-Dog, here's a recent interview with him done by Sam Mitchell:

Getting the interview with George up on the Diner took so long because so much else has been ongoing with me personally as well as in the world of Collapse in general. Besides that I had video problems with my cameras, and trying to edit together the good footage was a nightmare I finally quit on. So the Utoob "video" for this one is just a still picture screenshot from my line feed. It's really a Podcast, not a Vidcast in this case.

You can read further about George's theories on Sapience in his new book, available in pdf for a FREE download. I love free. ðŸ™‚

A Theory of Sapience: Using Systems Science to Understand the Nature of Wisdom and the Human Mind

Humanity faces what can only be called existential threats created by its own hands. We have cleverly built advanced cultures that use extreme amounts of energy to make life easy (at least for some) and that energy, for the last several hundred years, has come from carbon-based fossil fuels. Now we sit on the precipice of a calamity for ourselves and many other species as well.

Why?

If human beings are so clever, why have we not learned to moderate our activities, to consume only in proportion to what the Earth system can sustain in terms of resources and waste removal? We have gained the knowledge to understand what is happening and what we need to do. But we don’t do it in a timely way to avert devastation. What is wrong with us?

The answer to this question is surprising. Society is not wise in its choices – the collective decisions of humans – because individuals are not wise in theirs. And that is because wisdom, the tacit knowledge that develops in human minds through experiences, is lacking in the majority of humans. Most humans do not develop wisdom adequate to deal with the complexities of the modern world. As a result they make choices not based on rational long-range thinking about consequences or how those consequences interact systemically. They tend to look only at short-term gains in their own selfish wellbeing.

This book reports on investigations into the underlying causes of the lack of wisdom in average people. Sapience is the set of nascent mental competencies, situated in the human brain, that make us human. Sapience is the basis of higher-order consciousness experienced by humans. It is linked with the emergence of the language facility and our ability to work in symbols. It is the reason that we can think about future states of the world, especially those that may be different from the current and past states we have experienced. It is the product of a remarkable evolutionary process that produced hyper-social animals with sufficient cleverness to invent tools, languages, symbols, even art. We invented agriculture to help bring stability into our living world and reduce uncertainty in our access to resources. But, we had only just crossed the threshold to sapient thinking.

We need to evolve further.

Sapience is the product of brain structures and functions that set the human species, Homo sapiens, apart from the rest of the animal world. It represents a major leap forward in the evolution of the Universe. It contributed to tremendous boosts in our general intelligence and creativity. It provided the basis for morality and concerns for the wellbeing of others. But, even so, it was just a beginning. It does not go far enough in terms of providing individual minds with the ability to grasp the larger and deeper meanings of their choices and actions.

This book explores the nature and evolution of sapience as it is found in human beings today using systems science. It explores the psychological implications of having some capacity for developing wisdom in one’s life but not enough capacity to fully grasp the big picture of the human condition, and thus, make tragic errors in judgements. It attempts to answer the question of why we are in this predicament.

George as usual has many interesting observations and opinions regarding Collapse and where we are headed. They are different in many ways than what you read from other pundits discussing the subjects, and we are in good agreement about most of them. I hope you enjoy listening to the discussion as much as I enjoyed having it with him.

(audio-only MP3 provided in case you want to multi-task and listen while sitting in traffic on the way to work in your cubicle or digging post holes for your fencing on the Doomstead or kneeling by the throne and Praying to the Porcelain God. mp3 Audio can be downloaded from Diner Soundcloud.)

Recent discussions with Jason Heppenstall of 22 Billion Energy Slaves have mainly centered around Geopolitics, specifically the Brexit issue that has kept the UK in thrall for over 3 years now, culminating at the moment with the rise to power of Boris "BoJo" Johnson as Prime Minister and the threat of a "No Deal" exit from the European Union. That supposed "deadline" falls on Halloween, October 31st, slightly over 2 months away. One has to suspect of course that they will find a way once again to kick the can down the collapse higway rather than deal with the inevitable blowback and mayhem such a move will cause. The EU is like the Hotel California, "You can check out, but you can never leave".

In this episode of the Collapse Cafe however, we turn back the clock to have a better look at how Hepp got from where he was before becoming "Collapse Aware" to where he is now, a serious Doomer living in Cornwall in the Southwest corner of Jolly Old England. All of us who write on Collapse Issues here in the Blogosphere have some story to tell about what brought us to this type of outlook and attitude, and the story Hepp has to tell is quite interesting. My own story will be coming up also in the near future, I recently got interviewed by Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles to fill in his listeners on the reasons for which the Doomstead Diner exists here in cyberspace.

On a technical level for this broadcast, right now I am completely SWAMPED with things I have to do to prepare my crippled ass for another Jet Setting adventure down to the Lower 48, this time to be present for the placement of the SUN Monument on its Eternal Resting Place in Springfield, MO, more or less dead center of what is now called the FSoA (Fascist States of Amerika) and used to be called Turtle Island by the original Homo Sap inhabitants of this patch of the earth. Besides that, over the past couple of months I have had a lot going on personally with getting my Food Truck program going and the global Collapse Newz has really accelerated as of late as well.

The entire prior paragraph is basically an EXCUSE for the way I am publishing this interview, it's a single un-edited take off one of the cameras I was running during this interview, along with the line feed I get off Skype. I just haven't had the time or energy over the last couple of months to edit and splice together all the different camera angles and the line feed to make a perky visual for this one. I didn't even cut out the section in the middle of the recording where one of my cameras goes blooey and I gotta fix it. It's only a couple of minutes, you can fast forward through it or if you want to be entertained by technical bullshit and watching a cripple go fix his camera, you can watch that too. lol. Or you can just listen to the audio as a Podcast from Diner Soundcloud and forget watching the video at all. Your choice on this one. If you elect just the audio, you can download that as an .mp3 and listen while you do the Fall Harvest from your Doom Garden or sit in traffic in your car on the way to your current job in Industrial Civilization, if you still have one.

See you again next week from the Lower 48 with the Mobile Diner Office I will set up in a Missouri Motel 6 (aka "Bates Motel"), where Tom Burdett has left the light on for me. ðŸ™‚ That is assuming I can negotiate my Cripple Cart and trailer through the TSA examination and then on and off 3 planes through 4 airports to get there. It's a full 24 hours of travel time from the time I leave on Tuesday night at 10:30PM in a Cripple Cab and theoretically arrive at Springfield-Branson International Airport to be picked up by another Cripple Cab at 11:50PM on Wednesday night. If you thought plane travel was rough as an ambulatory Homo Sap, you should try it sometime as a Cripple. It's Dante's 7th Circle of Hell. lol.

I got interviewed by Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles right before I left for the Great Tombstone Adventure to the Lower 48, which he just got up today. In here you will find the complete story of the founding of the Doomstead Diner along with my Humble Opinions on the Monetary System, Climate, Extinction and Dr. McStinksion himself. lol.

I know Diner Fans are Chomping at the Bit awating the vids from the SUNâ˜¼ Monument Placement Ceremony on it's Eternal Resting Place in the center of Flyover Country, Springfield, Missouri. However, you will have to wait another week for that, at least. As usual, other more Time-Sensitive artciles or vids have jumped the queue here, and for this line-cutter it's an interview I did with Sam Mitchell of the YouTube Channel Vlog COLLAPSE CHRONICLES. For a change, I am not doing the interview, I am the "Intervieweed". In this episode, we talk about Economics, Climate Change & Extinction, all pretty popular topics amongst Kollapsniks of course. ðŸ™‚

Besides that, except for you Grizzled Veterans of the Diner who already know this stuff, included as a BONUS is the short version History of the Doomstead Diner, how it came to be and WHY it exists at all? Although some of Sam's listenership on Collapse Chronicles are familiar with the Diner, many are relative Newbies to the Collapse Blogosphere, so this was a great opportunity to reach a new audience for the daily offerings, discussion & debate on the Doomstead Diner. Our full History is recounted (Cliff Notes Version) during this interview, going all the way back in Mr. Peabody's WAYBAC Machine to my Doomer Beginnings living down in the (former) Tropical Paradise of Brazil in the 1960s.

We also cover the Collapse Vectors & Outcomes that may evolve over time, as well as whether or not EXTINCTION is the main thing you have to worry about right now? What are the Proximal Causes? What is the Timeline? Will EVERYBODY die? What does Greta Thunberg think? Will we all be SAVED by a modern day Joan of Arc? Or like her 16 year old historical counterpart, will she end up Burned at the Stake?

It's all speculation of course, nobody really can have the answer to these questions, particularly since this is an Unprecedented Event. Although there have been numerous Civilization Collapse Events throughout Human Hitory, none has ever been completely GLOBAL in its effects; none has ever had the participation of 7.6B Homo Sap Meat Packages involved simultaneously; and none has placed the Existential Peril of the possible ANNIHILIATION of ALL LIFE ON EARTH as a possible outcome. Not just "Human Life", but ALL LIFE. Are we singing the Swan Song for life on Planet Earth, and for all we really KNOW, all the Universe?

Neither Sam nor me (or Greta!) has the answers to these questions, but we do try to frame the questions to make them as accessible as possible to think about. It's a lot to ponder on, probably the greatest conundrum to face Homo Sap since we dropped down from the trees to overrun & overpopulate the surface of the Earth. In just a couple of 100 Thousand Years since becoming "Sapient" (as in relatively modern human anatomy), our own Biomass has effectively squashed out innumerable species, as we progressively moved through agriculture, metallurgy, ceramics and ultimately, Industrialization. Will we now become responsible for our own Extinction as well? Is there any road out left? If there is, how many can come through to the other side of the Zero Point? How Many can be Saved?

More than many weeks that I have spent observing the Collapse of Industrial Civilization, this week (and the weeks before too!) have proven to be above and beyond merely awful, they have been downright DISASTEROUS! The decent into Dante's 7th Circle of HELL began more or less with the latest in Climate Disasters, the FLATTENING of Grand Bahama by Hurricane Dorian, a massive Cat 5 Hurricane that hovered over the islands for a couple of days with sustained winds of 185 MPH. This place will not be a Tourista Destination again for a very long time, if ever before the planes stop flying there.

Following up on this climate disaster, we had the further emergence and promotion of Greta of Stockholm, the 16 year old modern Joan of Arc who is battling with the Big Boys on Twitter over Climate Change, including the biggest Twit-Shit blowhard of them all, the Denier-in-Chief, Donalditry Trumpovetsky. So far, Greta hasn't Blinked, which is of course not unusual for somebody diagnosed as Autistic, which she likely is. So in the Battle of DSM V Diagnoses on Twitter, so far Greta's Autism is Trumping Donalditry's Megalomania, Narcissism and Misogyny. Greta clearly has a HUGE promotion machine behind her, but for the Climate folks this is an excellent Propaganda Maneuver. Nothing sells better than a cute girl in the Ad Biz. Nobody listens to what your typical academic dweeb Scientist has to say on this subject, but drop a cute autistic 16 year old in front of the UN General Assembly, and everybody all of a sudden takes notice! Isn't that special?

As big as the Climate action was over the last few weeks though, it pales in comparison to what is going on both in Geopolitics and in Economics, two of the main fronts we focus on here on the Doomstead Diner. As Sam Mitchell of Collapse Chronicles and I discussed in our recent conversation (which BTW took place quite some time before all this action arose), although longer term the Climate problem is the greater Existential Threat we face here trying to survive on Planet Earth, there are more proximal problems which threaten our existence also percolating, and if we can't resolve them there will be plenty of Dead People filling up the Cemeteries even before the oceans swallow up Miami Beach, Hong Kong, the City of London and Wall Street.

First up on the Geopolitical Hit Parade is the buffoonery ongoing with Brexit across the pond in Jolly Old England. As it currently looks, BoJo is likely to get a No Confidence vote in Parliament, possibly paving the way for the Socialist Jeremy Corbin who heads up the Brit Labour Party to ocuppy 10 Downing Street as a Caretaker Prime Minister while they delay Brext still further (aka, Kick-the-Can). A comparison here would be like Trumpofsky being kicked out and replaced by Pelosi to run the country on this side of the Hurricane filled Atlantic Basin. Assuming he does get the nod as the new, new PM for a while AND the Eurocrat Globalists in Brussels agree to yet another extension, this gets followed up by another new,New, NEW election in the UK, along with ANOTHER referendum on Brexit. If you haven't figured this out by now, referendums are quite meaningless. Once you Check In to a Union like this, you can't Check Out. Well, you can Check Out, bu you can Never Leave. It's the Hotel California on the pollitical level.

Nobody in power really gives a Flying Fuck about what the Plebes want or don't want, this is just part of the sham and window dressing of "Democracy", which works OK when there are plenty of resources around and everyone (including the poor) are reasonably well-fed with roofs over their heads. It doesn't work so great though when the resources run thin and segments of the population start getting cut off from the Bennies of being part of a large political structure like this. When this occurs, the Rich want to maintain their perks and privilege inside the society, and the Poor want to…SURVIVE. Poor folks mainly will accept their fate as long as they have full bellies, but once they start going hungry they tend to get a little tired of Marie Antoinette munching on Cake in Versailles while they can't afford the bread at the local bakery. This level of existential problem hasn't really hit yet in force in the Western Industrial Economies, but is already playing itself out in many of the peripheral countries in Africa, South & Central Amerika and SE Asia. It will arrive on the shores of OECD countries though in due time.

Crossing back over the pond to the Political Kabuki Theater ongoing with Trumpty-Dumpty here in the FSoA, it's starting to look like the Dumbkopf-in-Chief has at last crossed a Bridge Too Far. Even his base of foaming at the mouth neo-Nazi supporters have a tough time swallowing the bullshit he was trying to pull off in Ukraine, trying to get some good dirt on his perceived main Political rival of Uncle Joe Biden, who of course also does take time off between his Senior Moments to do a few shady deals, this time involving his son wheeling & dealing in Ukraine. Uncle Joe is rapidly losing credibility amongst Demodopes who have considered him the most "Electable" candidate and the best Knight in Shining Armor to take on the Black Knight of Trumpovetsky.

Recent polls have Bankster Slayer Elizabeth Warren as the candidate for the Demodopes most popular, particularly in the early primary/caucus states she appears to have Moe Mentum, the 6'11" Power Forward First Round draft choice of all political candidates, it's even more valuable than money, although you do need plenty of FRNs to sprinkle around on the media to keep that momentum up. It's still up in the air as to how well Liz will do given her quasi "Socialist" agenda, but the further Trupovetsky shoves his foot and leg and penis down his mouth, the greater the probability Liz gains more traction. The rule with Trumpovetsky is to give him a lot of rope, because he is certain to hang himself with it. The oncoming parade of witnesses to appear in front of CONgress looks to be the best Kabuki yet this side of the pond, easily rivaling the Brit Brexit show and perhaps surpassing it in hilarity, though that would be hard to do. Watching a bunch of Eton educated Stiff Upper Lip Brits convulse on the floor of Parliament is a tough act to follow. lol.

More than all of those late breaking Collapse Storiez though is the ongoing MELTDOWN of the Fed Repo Market. It is getting some coverage in MSM financial websites, but overall most Amerikans aren't the least bit aware or concerned with this clusterfuck. I've been writing on this and covering the progress Inside the Diner, and of all the vectors for Collapse threatening our civilization RIGHT NOW, this one holds the most potential for creating extreme havoc of them all. Sorry Greta, as important as your issues are, this bullshit is going to hit hard long before we drown under rising Sea Levels. Here's one response I wrote to one of the Diners trying to explain in a reasonably short post WTF is going on here:

When Da Fed does QE, it doesn't just sprinkle free money around and get nothing in return for it. They don't make unsecured loans, you have to trade good collateral for the freshly printed FRNs. What is "good collateral"? Loans made to credit-worthy customers. But what happens when there aren't enough credit worthy customers out there to make loans to? What happens when the collateral they do have is non-performing loans (NPLs)?

What happens is what the BoJ does, which is the CB buys the Bonds issued by Da Goobermint directly. This finances Goobermint spending, but it doesn't make money for the banks, which are in the bizness of making loans to make money, If banks aren't making money making loans, how do they make money? By using the cash they do have speculating in equities. But what happens when everybody is expecting a stock crash? They all want to get out of stocks, but they can't sell them without driving forward the crash. So they try to take out more short term loans to cover the shortfall in expected earnings. If everybody is doing this, you get a liquidity crisis, which is what they got at the moment.

Da Fed is TRYING to push more money into the system to ease this crisis, but apparently even $75B/daily isn't enough to do the trick. If they can't inject more cash into the system, you'll get a liquidity lock-up, which is very Bad Newz for everybody, right down to J6P. That's the kind of thing which makes all the ATMs go down at the same time.

For some more detail, Max Keiser's most recent Keiser Report video outlines the problem in more detail (I'm not ripping off Max here, I got my analysis up before he published his. However, he does flesh it out more completely.):

The BIG QUESTION here of course is precisely WHO is going Tits Up on a financial level, and whoever(s) it is has to be a very big financial institution(s). Like with Lehman though, we won't know who it is until the traders are walking out of the building leaving their Bloomberg terminals behind, hopefully wiping their hard drives clean and boxing up incriminating evidence to set a Bonfire with in the backyard of the suburban McMansion they occupy on Long Island or Germany or Britain or wherever the fuck this shit is currently centered.

I was asked still another question Inside the Diner asking for some kind pf prediction on what is likely to occur here. Making these sort of predictions is a dangerous game, but I decided to take a flyer and speculate on this one:

Thanks again RE. This was a good video about repo (until he lost me on bitcoin). The question becomes is a bankruptcy of Deutsche Bank going to bring down the entire dollar fiat money system or just give us a GREAT depression OR the collapse of civilization?? Tell me oh wise one.

AJ

That is really on the outside limits of Nostradamus prognostication. I will do a reach on this, but don't get on my case if I don't have it precisely correct. I'm not even sure yet that it's Deutche Bank that is getting the run yet. It might actually be a run on multiple banks.

However, let us look at the case where it is JUST D-Bank getting hit on here. DB is VERY big, with counter-party relationships with all the other TBTF Banks, aka JP Morgan Chase, Goldman etc. So if DB goes BK, they're gonna carve up whatever assets they have (not too many I am sure) and divvy them up in some way to keep the counter parties from ALSO going BK. This is what as known as Financial Cross Contagion. See David Korowicz for more detail on this phenomenon.

Now, the issue here is that whatever is left in the vault of DB isn't NEAR enough to cover the derivatives they wrote, essentially insurance policies on BKs of various institutions and goobermints. To make up the shortfall here, SOMEBODY (Da Fed, Da ECB etc) will have to step in and cover those losses, elsewise the capital structure of those banks also collapses. Then you have your "Great Depression" scenario. See the collapse of Credite Anstaldt (Austrian Bank) prior to the GD to understand how this works.

I *think* the "smartest guys in the room" are quite aware of this, hell fucking Ben Bernanke made his career on looking at this stuff. So I do not think they are unprepared for it entirely, but then again it's different now than the financial system in place when the GD Collapse of the banking system went down. The amounts of notional money and complex financial instruments is much larger, and really NOBODY knows how big they actually are.

So to try and answer your question, it's a fucking SHIT STORM waiting to happen. If it does cross over to the counter parties, then yes it is the absolute end of this monetary system, and HELL will follow.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

RE

Finally to tidy up here, you might be wondering WHY I headed up this article with a snippet from my recent trip down to the Lower 48 to plant the SUN Monument (also my Tombstone) in the middle of Flyover Country in Springfield, MO. If you are familiar with my Gonzo take on all this shit, you probably grasp that it is a metaphor of Collapse and of Resurrection as well. While the Civilization around me is collapsing, I too am collapsing. It was my goal to get this final statement planted for the rest of Eternity before, in the words of Leonard Cohen…

Take one last look at this Sacred Heart

Before it Blows

Everybody Knows

I got it done before I finally have another meeting with the Grim Reaper that he wins instead of me. That will happen of course, the Reaper always wins in the end. But he can't destroy my stone tablet, at least not without a decent amount of explosives.

Excellent article. This is vintage RE, a dose of that ol' time religion. I enjoyed it.

In re this:

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...it's starting to look like the Dumbkopf-in-Chief has at last crossed a Bridge Too Far. Even his base of foaming at the mouth neo-Nazi supporters have a tough time swallowing the bullshit he was trying to pull off in Ukraine, trying to get some good dirt on his perceived main Political rival of Uncle Joe Biden, who of course also does take time off between his Senior Moments to do a few shady deals, this time involving his son wheeling & dealing in Ukraine.

I do far more social media than you. Never underestimate the locked-in, sightless bullshit of the Evertrump Corps of True Believers.#TeamTraitor's malfeasances and confessed crimes:

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The party of hate needs to be totally dismantled. They have no place in our country...yes...I’m referring to the Democrats.

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Who knew that all it would take to make progress was vision, chutzpah and some testosterone?

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If it takes putting up with his brash ways to see things get done, that is a deal I’m willing to accept. I’m not sure he would have accomplished what he has so far without being an unrelenting public bully.

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The media, as the hotbed of hatred against Mr. Trump, has pushed me more toward him than his social behavior has done the opposite.

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Before Trump, we were scared of any volatility. Oh no, ISIS! Oh no, banks! The more chaos there was, the worse we were. Now volatility is our friend. The more chaos, the better! Entrepreneurship up. Optimism up. Good old American problem solving is back! You know who loves change? Capitalists.

Quote

ITS ARE COUNTRY AND WE WONT LET THEM TAKE IT FOR THIER OWN EVIL WAYS

Had enough yet? This small sample shows who they are, although not nearly as well spoken.

What trump has (and that his antagonists lack) is a deep. Peter-Finch-in-Network appreciation for how TV moves the country. He appreciates that controlling the narrative means everything. It remains for the Dems to create a compelling story out of trump's existing confessions of treason. My confidence is not high. Even today, Jay Fucking Sekulow is talking about "getting on top of this thing," so the spin-and-twist will be out in full force. To say nothing of the exhumation of bodies around d HRC's emails.

Excellent article. This is vintage RE, a dose of that ol' time religion. I enjoyed it.

Periodically I reach back down deep to find the old RE Blogger after transforming into a Vlogger. I do need to follow this up though with a Video Rant.

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I do far more social media than you. Never underestimate the locked-in, sightless bullshit of the Evertrump Corps of True Believers.

You cannot plumb too deep into the depths of human stupidity.

Quote

Had enough yet? This small sample shows who they are, although not nearly as well spoken.

That was more than enough. Ugh.

Quote

What trump has (and that his antagonists lack) is a deep. Peter-Finch-in-Network appreciation for how TV moves the country. He appreciates that controlling the narrative means everything. It remains for the Dems to create a compelling story out of trump's existing confessions of treason. My confidence is not high. Even today, Jay Fucking Sekulow is talking about "getting on top of this thing," so the spin-and-twist will be out in full force. To say nothing of the exhumation of bodies around d HRC's emails.

Get yer popcorn.

Anyhow, good article.Keep writing.

I will try to find time to keep writing, but my Viking Doomstead got hit and there was a bloody massacre of most of my trained Warriors. Many young Diners went to the Great Beyond defending the Doomstead, but we did survive. I am making improvements to the defenses and training a new crop of Cannon (well, Trebuchet) Fodder. We did retain most of our resources stored in the Vault, so we are in OK shape to rebuild. The Castle is at Level 9 now!

Across the Collapse Blogosphere, you'll repeatedly run into the acronym "SHTF". There's even at least two blogs titled with the acronym, SHTF Plan & SHTF Blog . I'm sure there are others, but those two make it into the Top 15 of "Survivalist" Blogs. Here on the Diner on an economic level we often discuss "SHTF Day". It's the day the ATMs go down or the liquidity dries up in the ovenright interbank lending market or the stock market drops 5000 points in a day, that sort of thing. Total MAYHEM ensues after such an event of course, which would be a watershed and marker as we move inexorably down the Collapse Highway. The Stock Market crash of 1929 was such an event, and for those of you interested in comparison of what occured 90 years ago to the week to today, this is a good documentary recently produced (there are of course many of them).

A single SHTF Day may or may not occur along the road here, and it may or may not be proximally an economic event, though whatever does set things off for a faster ride down the Roller Coaster Hill has as its underpinning economics. It might be somebody pitching a Nuke at somebody else they have disagreements with; it may be a 9.0 shaker sending half of Los Angeles into the Pacific Ocean; it might be the entire grid of the FSoA being knocked out by one disgruntled teenage Hacker living in mom's basement, WTF knows there what the trigger might be?

On the Geopolitical level though, this week,for the Anglo-American Empire on both sides of the Pond, this can be described as nothing less than SHTF Week. Two Kabuki theaters are playing themselves out, one in Parliament in Jolly Old England, the other here in the FSoA in CONgress. Boris Johnson (BoJo) tried to ramrod his latest tweaks to the Brexit Deal through Parliament, and like Theresa May before him, it got pretty well shot down. So Parliament is once again swimming in a pool of deep shit, and the coming week before the All Hallow's Eve deadline to exit the EU stage left should be quite the hoot. Don't miss the updates on this clusterfuck here Inside the Diner.

Not to be outdone by the Brits, the Clown-in-Chief and his Minions are staging a Clown Show that is non-pareil in Amerikan History, by more measures than even I thought imaginable. I mean, I've been following the antics of The Donald since I was a Freshman at Columbia and always knew (and repeatedly said here on the Diner) that he was a Train Wreck waiting to happen, and happen it did this week. It is of course something of a slow-motion train wreck, and this whole Kabuki has numerous acts to follow this week's opening salvo. El Trumpo had a "meltdown" in his most recent meeting with Pelosicrat, Repugnants are jumping ship all over the place due to his withdrawal of troops from Syria and abandonment of the Kurds, and most entertaining of all, Rudolf the Red-Faced ex-Mayor of the Big Apple is currently under investigation by both the FBI and the SDNY for innumerable transgressions and obviously thoroughly illegal activities with respect to Ukraine-gate. Beyond THAT, Rudy-Kazooty has now gone DESAPARECIDO, and dropped off the face of the Earth with no appearances on FAUX Newz and no Tweets either, for I think about the last 72 hours! I have speculated inside the Diner that he may have gone the way of Jimmy Hoffa, although I don't think he is buried under the Astroturf at Giant Stadium. He may be wearing Cement Galoshes though and doing some Deep Diving at the bottom of the East River. lol.

He may turn up here at some point, but if ever there was a "Smoking Gun" in a corruption investigation, Rudi is IT in this one. Just as John Mitchell was the Smoking Gun in the original "-gate" conspiracy of Watergate, Giulani is the same kind of lynchpin here, connecting Trumpovetsky to the various other lower level money conduits from Mother Russia into the Trump campaign, and also more than likely his various failing biznesses which need the constant infusion of debt to keep running. Make no mistake about it, El Trumpo is PWNED by Vlad the Impaler, and when he no longer proves to be an asset but rather a liability, Putin will cut him loose too.

So, as we move forward into the NEXT week of Kabuki here on this side of the pond, the main question for the week is, "Where's Rudi?"